None of them ever expected they would wind up traumatized for life, wounded, or dead.

There will be a lot of talk trying to figure out just what happened here. People will point fingers to this or to that. What have we become as a society? Look at what we consider to be entertainment. We have forgotten God. And more.

None of that talk will matter. All of it will be nothing more than confused people looking for reassurance after being confronted by an inexplicable act.

The only thing that matters is this: The person who did it is the person who did it.

You out there with a gun, imagining what it would be like to take that gun and go shoot many people, there is no one else you can blame for that thought. There is no disappointment large enough in your life to ever justify carrying out that action.

Do you know anything about history? Did you ever hear of something called the Holocaust? Millions of people tortured and starved. Have you ever gone through that? Did you ever have to wake up each day to a nightmare of imprisonment at the hands of people being paid to be cruel? Did you ever have to watch your body waste away to a skeleton barely covered in skin? Did you ever have to see someone you love ripped away from you and sent to what might be their death?

You just don’t realize how good a life you have lived.

If that history is too ancient for you, if your education didn’t instill in you the complete horror of that event, then let me bring you up to the modern day in which you live.

Everybody eats shit.

There’s the secret that no one has let you in on.

All those people you’ve been envious of, who have things you don’t? They’ve eaten shit.

All those people who have wronged you or who you think have wronged you? They’ve eaten shit.

All those people you’re thinking of shooting? They’ve eaten shit.

Whatever you think you’ve been through, others have been through too.

Your pain is nothing special.

That is how life is. For everybody.

That teacher who gave you a hard time one day? Maybe it’s because her mother is suffering from Alzheimer’s and she couldn’t figure out how she could pay for her care and the day she made you feel bad was because of that. It had nothing to do with you.

Those kids who dissed you at school? Did you ever stop to think they did that because of their own inadequacies? That they saw you as better and therefore lashed out in jealousy? It had nothing to do with you. It all had to do with them.

The cop who yelled at you and wouldn’t give you a break? Maybe it’s because what you were doing was something that got his own son killed. And he wished someone had yelled at his son like he’s yelling at you. He wasn’t being cruel to you by not cutting you some slack. He was being mean to be kind. He wanted you to live.

You think you know why people do things. You don’t know shit.

If you could see inside the minds of others, you’d see disappointments, shattered dreams, and trauma of the sort you could never imagine and would never want to experience.

Yet all of those people carry on.

None of them ever thought of getting a gun and shooting others.

They know that in this life everybody eats shit.

You grow up and you become a man the day you understand that everybody eats shit and that the proper thing to do is to just carry on.

I’m not going to tell you things get better. I’m not here to give you a line of bullshit like that. Hell, you could wind up eating shit every day until the day you die. Some people have. But they never got a gun and killed other people.

Because to do that would have meant defeat. And they didn’t want to end their lives in defeat. They fought until the end. They kept living and let others live in the hope the day would come when things would be better, even a little better.

Just because you’ve had to eat shit doesn’t mean you should go around making other people eat your shit by shooting them.

Getting a gun and shooting other people does not make things better for anyone.

If you want a thought to start the day with other than one that involves shooting people, then make it this question: How can I make it better for someone today?

If everyone in the world woke up with that thought, all of us would have to eat a lot less shit.

If you’re sitting there with a bunch of guns, let me tell you what to do. You take those guns and that ammo and you put on gloves and wipe them all down clean. You get your fingerprints off them. You keep those gloves on and then you put them all in one bag or one suitcase. And in the dead of night you haul them or drive them to some deserted area that has a wired payphone nearby. And you dump them. Then you get on the payphone to the police and you tell them you’ve found a stash of weapons. No, you don’t want to give your name and you hang up. And then you hide and make sure the cops have come and got them.

That’s it. You’re done with it. Now you can start to live.

And you wake up the next day free and in a world that has a lot less shit in it for everybody to eat.